In a highly dense macro-micro hybrid network (Dense HetNet), a macro base station is responsible for wide-range coverage, and a small cell is mainly responsible for meeting a data service transmission requirement in a local area.
Because service distribution changes relatively fast within a small range, enough small cells usually need to be disposed in a network deployment phase. As hardware costs of the small cell decrease, it may be even considered to deploy a small cell in any place in which a small cell can be deployed.
However, because service distribution dynamically changes, if all stations (including the macro base station and the small cell) are kept in an enabled state at any time, some stations may have few services to process within a period of time, or even have no service to process, which causes a serious energy waste, thereby causing an energy consumption increase of a communications system.